[1] While project members realize that locating missing artwork is a great challenge, they decided that the moral and financial imperatives surrounding the cause make it worth the effort.
This decision was made based on Max Stern's ideals, as he was always encouraging art education and passion in Canada and around the world.
Rather, it was also created as an incentive to motivate governments, museums, collectors and the art trade towards resolving injustices caused by Nazi cultural policies.
Launched in fall of 2006, Auktion 392 is a traveling exhibit surrounding the forced sale of Stern paintings in the Lempertz auction house during 1937.
It also accompanies the seminal research of Professor Catherine MacKenzie and MA students from Concordia's Department of Art History.
[2] The exhibition outlines the unique story of Max Stern, and the legal issues of art restitution stemming from anti-Semitic policies during World War II.
[4] In order to be reclaimed, each discovered artwork has to run through a legal process which varies depending on its located country.
This difficulty stems from the fact that a large number of Stern's stock was not illustrated, and few of the given titles were likely to have remained over the years.
Dealers will often be in possession of the full story behind a specific painting, but choose to suppress this information for business reasons.
[3] Research conducted has learned that upwards of forty paintings originally owned by Stern have since been re-offered on the market in the last two decades, usually through major auction houses in Germany.